#7 Talking about Smart Cities

Using Apps for finding a shop or restaurant or looking for some friends nearby is already a reality and millions of people all around the world are using those conveniences every day. Still, this is just the first step of possible developments and changes of our cities. By using “big data” and digitalization our cities can turn into smart cities and help us to manage today’s and future challenges of growing cities in fields such as administration, urban planning, environment, economic development and others. Transparency, participation and better decision making should be among the chances of smarter cities as well. However - and especially from a liberal perspective - privacy protection and keeping autonomy of one’s own data must be taken into consideration.

In this episode, hosted by Armin Reinartz, we're meeting Leah from South Africa who is the political head of Johannesburg's Department of Economic Development and gives us an insight in her work, Rashed from Bangladesh who is an architect involved in various urban projects with the government designing streets and addressing how people want to use them, and Marco from Mexico is especially focussing on smart regulations and smart legislation regarding urban development and city transformation and advises local and federal governments in Latin America to promote reforms. 

We hope you enjoyed this episode! If you did, please rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast. You can find us on all major podcast providers such as Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Google Podcasts, Spotify or Deezer.